through hell and high water
by astarisms
Summary: Natalie's thoughts in her first moments in hell. Dialogue taken directly from the comic.


The first thing Natalie noticed was the sound. It was some strange, paradoxical sort of suffocating silence but it — wasn't. There was definitely noise, but it was unnatural, resonating all around her in the midst of a muted blackness so thick she thought it would strangle her.

She couldn't even hear the rustling she made as she moved, rustling that had been so commonplace she never noticed it until it was absent, but she was hyperaware of the low rumbling that seemed to be getting louder — loudeR — loudER — louDER — loUDER — lOUDER — LOUDER —

She gasped when something brushed her leg, jumping away, so startled she couldn't even find it in herself to be relieved that she'd heard something other than the voices that had surrounded her, raising the hairs on her arms and putting her on high alert.

She looked around frantically in the dark, straining against the lack of light, trying to find the source of whatever had touched her. Her lips trembled when she poised herself to ask who was there, but laughter so sharp and shrill to her left — no, her right — above her, below her, everywhere around her — cut through the murmurs, making Natalie freeze halfway through her question.

The giggles, eerily resembling those of a child, triggered a chorus of voices, overlapping and overwhelming and coming from all sides of her and making her feel small and exposed. Before she had time to even process them, something latched onto her wrist with a strength that wasn't painful, but insistent. Her eyes widened, shooting down to peer through the darkness to find she could make out the vague shape of a hand.

"SHE'S FINALLY HERE!" the voices cried, with glee, and Natalie's breath shuddered when she felt more fingers, curling around her with vigor, caressing her with claws, tugging her in every direction with no intention except to have her.

Natalie thrashed, kicking at the offenders, but something caught the corner of her eye in her struggle.

Looking down, she found the blackness had eased up — only to reveal that the hands clinging to her were disembodied, and there were countless eyes, looking up at her, blinking through the void they were trapped in.

Her scream caught in her throat, and she froze as realization finally settled in like ice water washing through her veins.

This was hell. She was in hell.

She was dead.

She couldn't be dead. Her dad wouldn't be okay with that. Max would think this was totally uncool of her. Her friends too, for that matter. And —

Oh, gosh. Had Lucifer found her, she wondered? Was he upset? He must have been. He was her best friend. She couldn't have him upset now. Last time he had been he'd destroyed an entire forest.

With newfound resolve and a lot of effort, she squirmed out of the grips on her. She needed to find a way out, she needed to get back —

"Where are you GOING?" they chorused, and with a quickness she hadn't been expecting they rewound around her, trapping her within their hold. Her eyes widened, the breath was knocked from her lungs.

"WHERE are you going?" they asked again, and she jerked her head away from a pair of fingers on her cheek.

"Stop…" she said, wishing for the words to come with an edge but instead hearing herself do no more than plea with them.

"COME HERE," they said, sickly sweet with all the worst intentions.

"Where CAN you GO?" they giggled in a voice that gently chastised while managing to crush her hopes as she looked around, trying not to panic, to discover they were right — where could she go, in this void, this suffocating nothingness?

"It's ok." Her heart leaping into her throat, Natalie turned her head towards the familiar voice so quickly she feared whiplash. Hand outstretched, reaching for her, offering her a way out, stood Lucifer. "I'm here, Natalie."

The hands pulled away from her, trailing her body on their retraction, making her skin crawl, but she was too relieved to care. She nearly tripped over herself in relief as she ran to him, her heart beating a frantic rhythm in her chest, stretching her hand out to grab his long before she even reached him.

He leaned forward, and she could have sobbed in relief when their fingers touched, but she was just as quickly overcome with surprise when he knocked her hand aside and reached for her face. He pulled her into him and then his lips were on hers and every thought she had flew out the window.

He was… kissing her? Lucifer was kissing her.

But before she could even recover from the shock of it, he was already pulling away, and she was still trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened when he whispered her name. She opened her eyes, not aware she had closed them in the first place, to look at him.

Immediately, she recoiled in horror, gasping in disgust. The face before her was distinctly Lucifer-shaped, but the eyes were blue and brown and were staring at her with the eager inspection of someone (someones?) who had long since lost their mind. His smile stretched wide and unhinged across his face, drooling out the corners with a deranged laugh accenting his next words:

"We care about you most."

She stumbled away from him, the relief she'd felt so powerfully just moments ago collapsing in on itself, giving way to hopeless despair.

"Lu-..." But this wasn't Lucifer. This was what Satan was.

Tears stung her eyes, hot and angry, burning and betrayed, at how easily she'd been manipulated by them. She squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn't have to look at his face anymore.

"LUCIFER!" she screamed, as loud as she could. The laughter, amused at her attempt, echoed all around her, inside of her. They knew it was just as useless as she did.

She fell to her knees, covering her face with her hands, and she cursed the cruel irony of the fact that the reason he couldn't hear her anymore was the very same reason she was in there to begin with.


End file.
